Moise Diarrassouba is a 16-year-old winger who plays for Cote D’Ivoire U-17.
Diarrassouba is very big for a winger. He is listed as 6’0″ (1.85 m) and he is very broad. Unsurprisingly, Diarrassouba’s main point of recommendation is his physical profile. He was absolutely bullying opponents in this tournament. This bullying mostly happened on the right wing where he was able to hold the ball up and force his way through defences. Diarrassouba has a very strong first touch and good close control which compliments his strength nicely. But he was also able to be a presence in the penalty area where his physicality made him dangerous as a receiver of crosses and as someone who could push the ball into the box, leaving undersized fullbacks in his wake. The fact that he was almost always significantly bigger than the fullbacks he was up against opened up some interesting tactical options for Cote d’Ivoire. He was more or less a guarantee to win a flick-on header or to hold the ball up for an overlapping fullback. However, there are some drawbacks to Diarrassouba’s game. For one thing, his decision-making is not very good. He takes a lot of low-danger shots from well outside the penalty area. Also, despite his strong close control, I wouldn’t say he is really a dribbler. He can of course force his way past players with his physicality but it was quite rare for him to beat an opponent through actual dribbling skill. You then have to wonder how well a player who is already relying a lot on physicality is going to translate his game from age-group football to playing against adult men.
Diarrassouba was able to use his physical profile to good effect on the defensive side of things. He was able to close down opponents effectively and displayed a strong work rate.
I have some reservations about Diarrassouba but I have always found the tall winger profile to be a lot of fun. I think he has enough about him to make it to a decent level in Europe, but he would need significant improvements in decision-making and dribbling to make it to the top. I could see him being very good somewhere like Norway or Sweden.
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